One of the horror genre's "most widely read critics" (Rue Morgue # 68), "an accomplished film journalist" (Comic Buyer's Guide #1535), and the award-winning author of Horror Films of the 1980s (2007), The Rock and Roll Film Encyclopedia (2007) and Horror Films of the 1970s (2002), John Kenneth Muir, presents his blog on film, television and nostalgia, named one of the Top 100 Film Studies Blog on the Net.

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Lost in Space Day: "The Ghost Planet"

In
“The Ghost Planet,” the Jupiter 2 passes through a zone of radiation on the way
to an unexplored planet. Dr. Smith (Jonathan
Harris) erroneously believes the planet is Earth, despite the fact that the
Robinsons are now in another galaxy all together.

Upon
landing on the planet, the red carpet is literally rolled out for the
Robinsons. They are welcomed as guests by unseen but apparently friendly hosts.

Smith
goes out first, expecting to meet the U.S. President. Instead, he is captured by the robot denizens
of the planet.

These
robots – “Supreme Prototypes of
Cybernetic Beings” – exist in both humanoid and non-bipedal
form, and. want to enslave the humans. They require them to work on a robot
assembly line.

When
Smith and Will (Bill Mumy) are captured and put to work, the Robot pretends to
be on the side of the planet’s machine inhabitants so he can help them escape.

“The
Ghost Planet” is marginally better than last week’s installment, “Wild
Adventure,” though that’s not actually saying a whole lot.

This week, machine-people (who resemble the
humanoids of the Cygnus, in 1979’s The Black Hole), one alien robot leader and an organic, pulsating brain attempt to enslave the Robinsons.

Once
more, the majority of the episode’s action goes to Smith, Will and the Robot. Smith
is captured (again), Will goes out to rescue him (again), and the Robot is
given perhaps the most interesting part of all.

He gets to play at being treacherous, attempting to gain the trust of
the alien machines. It would have been
awesome if he remembered to call the robot leader a ‘robotoid’ since we had
that term defined for us by him in “War of the Robots” in the first season. But
he doesn’t.

Still, the Robot’s role is
the most intriguing aspect of the story.
Although we love the robot, viewers may experience moments in which they wonder if he
has become loyal to those of his “own kind,” over those in his family, the
Robinsons. Yes, he’s proved himself many
times before, and yet still the tension around his behavior in “The Ghost
Planet” is real. Perhaps, this is some form of comment on our inherent distrust of technology.

“The
Ghost Planet” has little to recommend it other than some nice colors, and a
high level of action. In this case, it is useful to compare Lost
in Spaceto Star
Trek. Think of an episode of Trek,
like “The Man Trap,” which seems to possess a basic or familiar plot. It involves a Salt Vampire, a monster,
killing crewmen on the starship.

Yet
that episode holds up well today, because the monster is contextualized as
being the last of its kind. Dialogue
explicitly compares “the monster” to Earth’s buffalo. By focusing on this idea,
the story becomes something more than a monster-on-the-loose tale. We actually come to sympathize with the
monster.

Here,
Lost
in Space sets an episode on a robot planet, but has virtually nothing of
value or interest to tell us about that society, or what it means in a human
sense. The robots attack and capture
beloved characters, but we still know nothing about them, or their
culture.

The machines need humans to
work on a robot production assembly line, but the episode makes no observation
about that fact. In short, the story
might have been about the way that automation dehumanizes us, or how our
technology could replace us in the right set of circumstances. But “The Ghost
Planet” features none of those touches at all: it’s a straight-forward
run-around, with no depth, and no real humanity. The robots are just villains to escape from,
not a carefully-examined alien civilization.

Importantly, Lost
in Space is not always so insipid. I feel like I must point that out. “The Magic Mirror,” for example, is about growing up, and uses a
stagnant alternate dimension to describe the Peter Pan principle. Staying young
is great, but not if you don’t change.
Not if you don’t grow. “The Ghost
Planet” desperately needs some kind of angle like that so that it is not just
senseless phantasmagoria. The episode
never stops moving, but it never really gets anywhere, either.

No comments:

Post a Comment

About John

award-winning author of 27 books including Horror Films FAQ (2013), Horror Films of the 1990s (2011), Horror Films of the 1980s (2007), TV Year (2007), The Rock and Roll Film Encyclopedia (2007), Mercy in Her Eyes: The Films of Mira Nair (2006),, Best in Show: The Films of Christopher Guest and Company (2004), The Unseen Force: The Films of Sam Raimi (2004), An Askew View: The Films of Kevin Smith (2002), The Encyclopedia of Superheroes on Film & Television (2004), Exploring Space:1999 (1997), An Analytical Guide to TV's Battlestar Galactica (1998), Terror Television (2001), Space:1999 - The Forsaken (2003) and Horror Films of the 1970s (2002).

Follow by Email

What the Critics Say...

"...some of the best writing about the genre has been done by John Kenneth Muir. I am particularly grateful to him for the time and attention he's paid to things others have overlooked, under-appreciated and often written off. His is a fan's perspective first, but with a critic's eye to theme and underscore, to influence and pastiche..." - Chris Carter, creator of The X-Files, in the foreword to Horror Films FAQ (October 2013).

"Hands down, John Kenneth Muir is one of the finest critics and writers working today. His deep analysis of contemporary American culture is always illuminating and insightful. John's film writing and criticism is outstanding and a great place to start for any budding writer, but one should also examine his work on comic books, TV, and music. His weighty catalog of books and essays combined with his significant blog production places him at the top of pop culture writers. Johns work is essential in understanding the centrality of culture in modern society." - Professor Bob Batchelor, cultural historian and Executive Director of the James Pedas Communication Center at Thiel College (2014).

"...an independent film scholar, [Muir] explains film studies concepts in a language that is reader-friendly and engaging..." (The Hindu, 2007)"...Muir's genius lies in his giving context to the films..." (Choice, 2007)